A couple months back, I officially began working on my next piece. Coming off my show in Los Angeles back in March, I had been exhausted and burnt out from all the planning and the stress that came along with it.

Sometime in April, I initially got the idea to create a piece that had an abundance of oranges and leaves. I think I wanted the vivid colors of tangerines as something that complemented the subject. At the time, I had sketched out a portrait of a well-known singer (Chung-Ha). And at the time, I still made my sketches using pencil. But shortly after completing the sketch, I realized that painting her would strip my piece of the genuineness and sincerity that I wanted it to have. I didn't want to paint anyone just for the sake of painting them. Because of that, I lost interest in the piece and just went on to continue working on commissions and studies instead.

Eventually, I returned to the piece with a new sense of purpose. I wanted the piece to revolve around the word “Bambina,” a word that I had acquired from the third track on Vampire Weekend’s fourth LP, Father of the Bride. The Italian word “Bambina” translates to “baby girl”. In addition to the word being the title of the song, the track also includes the line, “For now, ciao, ciao, bambina”, and for some reason, that line stuck out to me and I just wanted to build something off of that. But moving onwards from this point, I knew that I wanted my new painting to embody the themes of happiness, youthfulness and hope amongst others.

As an artist, I am continuously learning new techniques and constantly trying to improve my skills. “The Four Seasons” is a good example of that. Before this piece, I did two things while painting that was detrimental to my work: I often used pencil to sketch my pieces and I did not use the dry brush blending technique. With this painting, I utilized an underpainting using a highly diluted burnt umber. I’ve found that underpaintings make my job ten times easier. It turns the sketching process from “outlining” to a more of a “sculpting” standpoint. This helped me visualize and assess the correct facial proportions for the portrait, which was what I mostly struggle with when it came to painting.

Here, you can see that I’ve begun rendering the eye and the nose area with the underpainting right below it. As you can tell, this was during the very early stage in the process where there’s barely any paint on the portrait and the nose isn’t correctly shaped yet.

With these shots, you can see the face slowly developing. In one of these shots, I’ve also begun working on the hair. This is something that I would go over countless times until I was satisfied with how it looked. Having always “rushed” hair or painted it very loosely, this was a little bit of a challenge for me. But part of the process is taking challenges head on and learning from them.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post. A lot has happened and I think I’m going to start writing on here again because I think it’s important to journal life as it happens. (I know I already do this through my art and poems but here it will be more transparent and less shrouded in metaphors n shit).

Anyway, as I finish this Americano that I got dressed and drove 10 minutes for, I think it would be a good idea to re-introduce myself because since my last post, we’ve reached over 7000+ followers and that’s a huge milestone for me. Many of you might not know who I am and what I’m about, even if you see me on social media a lot. My name is Francis and I’m 24 years old. I grew up in Upland, California and its surrounding areas before moving to Dallas, Texas for a few years. As you may already know, I’m an artist and I love art! Although I appreciate all types of art, I’m mostly drawn to art that comes from the renaissance, baroque and rococo eras which I think gets reflected in my work sometimes. Sometimes I also do photography. I will probably make a photography gallery section on my site when I get the time.

I guess one of the main reasons why I wanted to re-introduce myself again was because I’ve had this feeling that I come off as unapproachable on social media sometimes and I get that. This is an effort to be more open to you guys who support me and what I do. With the idiosyncratic way that people mostly use social media, it can become a little intimidating to approach people online especially when I’ve seen some people actively avoid any type of interaction (which I get because sometimes people cross personal lines) but I haven’t had that problem so it’s all good in da hood. We’re all friends here. i just don’t want to come off as cold anymore.

LIFE UPDATES:- Finishing up this semester (not my worst, but definitely one of the more time demanding semesters I’ve had - I HAVE 3 HISTORY CLASSES / given that two are art history classes, it’s not much of a problem but the ancient history class that I have is kickin my butt).- Recently learned a new technique in painting which I will go into more depth below.- Been listening to lots of Springsteen lately. Any Springsteen fans here?- Big props to Margherita Pizza and Buffalo wings. Some of my current obsessions.

I recently got a Margherita pizza and have been obsessing over it ever since, I think about it in my sleep. So I decided to look into it more and in my research, I understand that a “Margherita” pizza, not to be confused with “Margarita” the drink, is a type of Neapolitan pizza. The definition of what a Neapolitan pizza isn’t clear to me but from what I understand it is a type of pizza made with a specific type of tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. I also read that because of the way it's made, it’s usually smaller (about 8”) so it’s more of a personal pizza. Very interesting to me, I will do more pizza research and return with a higher understanding of pizza facts.

Onto my next topic, I feel like a FOOL for painting wrong this whole time. For the last year or so, I have been layering and blending my oils incorrectly. I once believed that I had to blend as I went along, this results in muddied color, bland highlights and overall a not so good painting. But I recently found out how to use a “blending brush”, I know that’s not what it’s called but for this blog, that is what we’ll call it. So instead of using one brush to paint and blend everything simultaneously, I have been putting down different values and instead of using the same brush, I use another DRY brush to blend each color into another which works A LOT better. I also began painting a little big bigger in terms of portraits and I’d say it’s working out for me so far. So here’s a portrait I’m currently doing. See below:

LETS TALK MUSIC!

What does Maroon 5 mean to u?

For me, it’s hard to say. I’ve been more or less a casual fan. I first heard their songs when I was a lot younger, I’m assuming it’s from their Songs About Jane album but I don’t remember much about it. But I definitely remember hearing “This Love” somewhere as a child. But anyway, if you’re looking for some tbt type of music today, I suggest listening to their song “Girls Like You”. Back to my initial question, I don’t know what exactly they mean to me but it reminds me of the whole era of teenage relationships - nothing in particular, but just the idea of being younger and feeling lost in the chaos of it all. I guess if I were to put it into one word, it would be the word “uncertainty”. Shout out to Maroon 5. They’re doing their thing.

I want to talk about the song “I’m on Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. More specifically, the music video. in the music video, Bruce plays the part of a car mechanic (in his typical working-class guy fashion) and a woman comes into the shop asking to get her car done. Bruce accepts. We see him lying in bed looking at the ceiling, deep in thought. By the end of the video, he goes to return the car in the middle of the night, he thinks about knocking on the lady’s door presumably to ask her out but then thinks better of it and then drives off in the night. Lots of vibes here. Very heavy video and it’s a little bit sad to me but I get it and I respect it. You don’t see that often these days. The song also has a very interesting production — interesting palm mutes to go with the melody of the song. I’m not so sure what the instrument that plays alongside it, but it seems like an organ of some type. It’s a good song and I recommend it if you’re into 80s vibe.

These days, my life has often begun to feel like a collection of quick, hollow flashes rather than dense, prolonged moments. This is, I assume, the result of a combination of the fast-paced characteristic of summer days, my daily habits and the things that life demands of me at the moment.

About a week ago, I announced that I would be taking a step back from art in order to reevaluate myself and my work, I wished to find the primary drive that I once had all those months ago in terms of why I created and who I created for. Things seem a little muddy these days. But that is not to blame the accumulation of commissions that I am most thankful and grateful for — I believe I just need to take care of myself better and to have a much clearer mindset on what I'm doing. And because my mind changes unbelievably fast, I took back my statements about stopping and closing shop momentarily to say that regardless of what I said in the past, I will still be continuing what I am currently doing. Only now, I hope to continue in a more thoughtful, more healthier way with an expansive focus on my health. That ultimately means days off — something I never afforded myself in the last year and a half that I had been doing this which led to me burning out and feeling extreme fatigue not only physically, but even more so mentally.

I want to slow down.

That is why in the past month, I have given a great amount of attention on my health and focused on the things that I wanted to do. These days, I remind myself to take breaks which comes in the form of playing video games like Harvest Moon or Fallout 4 or watching videos on YouTube with my girlfriend. We both recently bought film cameras because we want to get into film photography. Maybe film can teach me a thing or two about slowing down as well. In addition to that, I am planning to start vlogging soon. It's something that I often used to do a lot when I was younger before I got distracted with growing up amongst other things. I want to write more as well, something I also used to do plenty of before. Life is short, There's a world of things that I want to pursue and that's exactly what I'm planning to do. While I am still continuing art, I am also going to be paying attention to the things that I wish to do for fun. It seems like a good path to stay on.

P.S. If you're tired of constant disappointment with the new air of movies as of late, then go watch Mamma Mia 2. You'll enjoy yourself, I promise. (I mean, who doesn't love ABBA?)